


The Nine Lives of Tony Stark

by Suaine



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony needs a lot of saving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nine Lives of Tony Stark

The circuit board saves his life and that's as pathetic as the fact that his father drinks too much and doesn't know how to say _I love you_ , as pathetic as the way his mother sighs and turns away every time Tony shows her the things he can do with bits of metal.

He's five and working on the puzzle of tiny electronics keeps him from running away, from waiting out in the snow until nothing hurts anymore.

There is a pattern. At twelve he surrounds himself with engine parts and tries not to think about the empty spaces. Fourteen and it's the first time he hears about molecular engineering, nanotech and how to bend the laws of physics as he knows them. He meets Rhodey and booze and the three become the kind of friends that don't need explanation.

Rhodey saves his life, too, maybe in ways Tony will not understand until years later, when he's finally old enough to see the source code of what he is. What he can be.

He's seventeen and sex becomes something of a drug, better than the things that make his brain slow and fuzzy. It's still dangerous, but he knows how to build walls around himself, learns how to after the first time a girl sleeps with him because he's Tony Stark. He's seventeen and he looks the part and that attracts the wrong kind of people, but when they fuck him Tony can pretend.

At twenty-one Obie takes him aside, smiles, and tells him that Tony's brain is worth more than what he's making of it. That his genius can save the company. That they need what Tony has to offer. It sounds not unlike _You are wanted_ and Tony hears what he needs to.

Pepper saves more than just his life. She saves his company, his reputation, maybe even his soul. He doesn't blame anyone other than himself, but he thinks Pepper is part of the reason it takes over a decade for him to realize he's been selling death around the world. Creating it with his own hands, his mind, leaving a legacy of destruction.

He counts Afghanistan, but it's all tied up in Iron Man and Yinsen and the three soldiers who died because of him – not just because of his blindness, but directly due to his presence. He's saved there and maybe reborn, given another chance to stop and take a look around. He's never been good at that, at _seeing_ other people.

“Take that away and what are you?”

Tony without his toys and his money, without his genius maybe and his debt to society. What is he, really? He's quick to answer but slow to forget. The question remains with him. The boy without the circuit board, without his engine and knowledge and Rhodey, without sex and money and Pepper, without Iron Man, what is he?

He thinks he knows the answer, thinks he knows what it's like to live the life of a dead man. He's a ghost.

It's not that Tony wants to die and it's not that he spends his life unhappy. He's just been waiting for so long, he's forgotten what it is he's waiting _for_.

Steve saves people, it's a thing he does. He's occasionally reckless and considers himself more expendable than most, doesn't really have much to live for except the team, the shield, the country. Tony knows what that's like, so- he takes Steve to movies that need to be seen with a bucket of popcorn and the whisper of an audience; he teaches Steve about the internet and what it means to be a celebrity in the information age; they learn each other slowly, all the things that are underneath.

They're a little bit the same and a little bit different, enough that they don't always agree – and the arguments are explosive – but they always sort of hit the same wavelength in the end. Steve's got a temper and a mean streak and Tony is unaccountably good with children and both of them want to save the world, make a difference.

Tony doesn't know how it happens, how after that horrific first month when the team is new and they bite each others' heads off more often than not, they become friends. He knows they are friends because when Steve tells him-

“Oh my god, you asshole, don't you ever do that again. Okay?”

after one of his self-sacrificial stunts that saves Steve's ass but gets Tony shot in the chest with an EM pulse, Tony nods, still dazed, his heart beating faster than it should, and _he means it_. He looks at Steve and he thinks, hell, this is worth it.

Steve's smile makes him want to stay a while, look around. Steve doesn't actually give a fuck about how useful Iron Man or Tony Stark are, he knows too many super heroes; Steve cares about the bit where Tony gets up at 6 a.m. to make eggs that taste like cardboard and sometimes forgets to sleep when he's being a genius. Steve watches cartoons about magical girls and flying ponies and Tony falls asleep with his head on Steve's shoulder, mocking the magic of friendship.

They save each others' lives maybe once a week, occupational hazard.

But for the first time in his life, Tony thinks maybe he doesn't need _saving_.


End file.
